TCJ Recipes: Puff Pastry Egg Tart

I am just going to pretend like the mini-hiatus since June never happened, because every single second spent thinking about the backlog of posts that I have just makes me dizzy all over again, and that is not something I want to feel on a regular basis.

So to make up for it, I'm going to give you another simple recipe that I adapted from various sources, of which the most notable consisting of my favourite celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver.

If you must know, I have upgraded from a rice-cooker life to an apartment which has its built-in oven, and I had been dying to test it out, but had no idea what was worthy to christen my first oven session. Then the other day I realised the local supermarket had a sale on puff pastry, and I immediately recalled the egg custard tarts that I had been dreaming of since watching it almost seven months ago.




However, having tried this once before back home in Singapore with my mom and aunt, it ended up a failure and somehow scarred me a little. So, in attempting this a second time, I went to do more research with regards to people who have tried out the same recipe, and also Googled for more egg tart recipes.

My references were mainly from Christine's Recipes and The Extraordinary Art of Cake. It was after making the tarts that I found The Art of Bing, which had a detailed explanation and visual presentation.

The egg tarts I made came out pretty awesome, if I should say so myself. They were cinnamon-y and zesty from the orange. Here's the recipe and directions I sort of adapted for my own convenience.

Makes 6 tarts

Ingredients:

1 large egg
2 tablespoons raw sugar (caster sugar would be best)
4 tablespoons hot water
2 1/2 teaspoons condensed milk (most recipes called for evaporated, but I didn't have any)
Ground Cinnamon
Zest of orange
About 1 1/2 tablespoons of orange juice.
1 20x20 cm sheet of puff pastry
Flour for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Ensure your puff pastry is thawed and easily malleable, but not so soft that it becomes sticky.
3. Place it on a lightly floured surface and generously sprinkle the cinnamon on one side of the pastry sheet. I may have overdone it a little so show some restraint if you are a cinnamon lover haha!
4. Roll the pastry up and cut into 6 equal rolls. Then in your oiled / buttered muffin tins, press those rolls down (like Jamie Oliver did). It is easier to watch him do it at this point because I forgot to take pictures.
5. Gently shape it so that it looks like:

6. Toss that in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, dissolve the sugar in the hot water. Add the orange zest and orange juice to the mixture.

8. Mix it in with the condensed milk and egg and whisk well.

9. Take the pastry out and with a teaspoon, gently press the puff pastry back against the tin to create wells in which to pour the egg mixture in. Do not worry if the mixture overflows into the tin, as the sugar in the mixture will ensure a caramelised exterior (that surprised me).

10. Bake it for another 10 to 15 minutes and voila!

On hindsight, I realised that the sugar and water was unnecessary and more egg should have been used. So I will be using 1 1/2 to 2 eggs next time and omitting the sugar and hot water, instead, adding maybe a teaspoon more condensed milk. It would also be wise to add more zest, perhaps lemon might give it a more subtle kick. Since I have 9 more sheets of puff pastry left, I'm pretty certain this recipe will be honed and refined over and over again! :)

Have fun with these beauties! 

TCJ Recipes: Rice Cooker Carrot Cake

Attempt - quite yum but a bit too sticky.

Attempt 2 - drier 

One does not need an oven to bake a cake, all it takes is a rice cooker. Yep! I always had the inkling that we could bake / steam cakes in rice cookers, but never had the urge or sense to actually google it until recently. Adapting a recipe from Memoirs of Aleisha, I found myself with all the ingredients I needed to make this easy-as-hell cake. Simple as mixing it all together and tossing it into the rice cooker, I have already made it twice, and played around with the amount of ingredients, so this is sort of how I made it.


- 3/4 cups self-raising flour
- 1 large carrot (I grated it the first time, and peeled it the next with a peeler) 
- 1/3 cup brown sugar (I didn't really put too much sugar because I didn't want it too sweet.)
- 1/4 cup honey (I used less honey the second time and it didn't come out as moist, but it wasn't as sticky, so this is really at your own discretion)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup oil (Don't stinge on the oil if you want your cake to come out nicely out of the cookpot!)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
- nuts (optional)
- icing sugar / cream cheese frosting (optional)


So this amount will get you at least a 4 cm cake, and you have to remember to coat the cooker will oil / melted butter before tossing your ingredients in.


First, mix the cinnamon and flour together (Component A). Then take the sugar, honey, oil and egg and mix them thoroughly so you won't get grains or lumps (Component B). Take Component A and mix it into Component B. After folding it in, throw in your nuts and grated/peeled carrot. That's really it! If you mix the ingredients in the cookpot itself, just start cooking it! Usually my testy cooker will turn itself from 'COOK' to 'WARM' in about 10 minutes, but just wait till it cools down enough for you to turn it back to 'COOK' again. I did it about 3 times on and off so I'd say about 30 minutes? But just poke a fork through the cake and see if any of the mixture sticks to the fork. If not, it's probably cooked!


I know the upper side would look pockmarked and quite ugly, but trust me, if done right the bottom will be a golden brown. Such an easy recipe and you can substitute it with so many other fruits - apples or bananas or maybe the odd pumpkin if you are a daredevil! It really is a convenient way to make yourself some dessert and have some leftover for the mornings, especially if you don't like the hassle of cleaning up after baking. :)


Let me know how it goes for you! 

TCJ: Cauliflower & Cabbage Soup

I've got to admit, I'm not much of a cook, but when I actually get something right in the kitchen, I'm always pleased as punch! I'm more of a all-in-one pot kinda person, so soup, pot rice, porridge and instant noodles are really the staples over at TCJ HQ. I think the best invention would be the rice cooker, because you can fry, steam, boil, stew, (bake?)... almost anything, with a trusty cooker.

So on Sunday I wasn't feeling much of an elaborate meal, and the fridge was only stocked with cauliflower and cabbage, so I thought, hey, this would be good for a sweet autumn soup. I'm not a stickler for recipes, because I don't like how you have to follow all the measurements in creating a meal, so I can't really give you a set recipe. That said, I do know what I put in, so you'll have to be the judge of your own dish! Be creative, you know?

Ingredients:


A bowl of cauliflower florets (diced)
1 onion (diced)
garlic (diced, one or two cloves is enough)
2 chillies (the small ones, and depending on how hot you want it)
Chinese cabbage (diced)
1 medium-sized potato (for thickening)
salt
pepper
olive oil
water (from blanching the cabbage)

First I steamed the cauliflower florets and blanched the cabbage till soft so that I could dice them up easily. Unlike me, if you have a processor, I believe a rough chop of the vegetables are fine. I had to cut them finely so I could mash them up roughly later. I also boiled the potato and mashed it with some salt and pepper and kept it to one side.

Next, I used some olive oil to stir-fry the onion and garlic in the rice cooker, and added the chillies. Once the onions started to smell sweet (that's my gauge), I dumped the cauliflower and cabbage into the pot at intervals so that I could mash it up as I cooked it. Remember to keep the water used to blanch the cabbage in, because the sweetness is also retained in there (I think).

After adding the water, I let the mixture come to a boil and keep mashing it up. I'm alright with chunks in the soup, but if you don't, run it through a processor. Stir in the mashed potato next and then simmer the soup till you get a consistency you prefer. Also, season before you serve.

There you have it, a good bowl of soup to last you a couple of meals! Add some curry powder or greek yogurt for some kick if you are feeling adventurous!

Yummy and healthy lunch!